November 25, 2006

Chinese TV icon is hoping to open doors in Beijing

RANDY STARKMAN, SPORTS REPORTER

As a TV pitchman in China, he's been described as a cross between George Foreman and Elvis.

Pop his name into Yahoo's Chinese search engine and it'll get four times as many hits as Brad Pitt's.

He won't swim or run a single metre at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but he'll be by far the most popular Canadian when the team marches in the opening ceremonies.

It's hard for anyone to match the drawing power of Mark Rowswell, a Thornhill resident better known by his stage name of "Dashan" in China, where Chinese New Year's specials in which he stars attract 800 million viewers.

The Canadian Olympic Committee figured someone with that kind of clout might come in handy for the 2008 Summer Olympics and signed Rowswell up to be their team attaché.

As COC boss Chris Rudge puts it, "Walking down the street with this guy in Beijing is like walking down Yonge St. with Wayne Gretzky on one arm and Shania Twain on the other."

Rowswell (pronounced Rose-well) will educate the Canadian team on how best to operate in China and use his renown to help open doors, as well as give them a positive image among the locals.

"We are exploring some ways the team can use Dashan to give them a leg up," said Rowswell. "I think that's one of the ways maybe I can help the team. When Chinese people see the red and white and there's a guy from Team Canada, the image is, `Oh, Dashan's on that team and they're our friends.' As opposed to the Americans."

He's been part of meetings the Canadian team's had with the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee and helped secure an ideal location for Canada House, where the COC will host athletes' families and sponsors.

"A lot of China consultants will sell their services on the basis of their connections, that they know all the back doors," said Rowswell. "My work has always been the opposite. I don't necessarily know anybody, but I can be pretty sure they know me. We can go into a meeting and it is a foot in the door."

The 41-year-old University of Toronto graduate is talking as he tucks into his pasta during lunch in a downtown Italian restaurant. Here, he can keep a low profile. There are no gawkers, unlike in Beijing.

He's just been at the Metro Convention Centre to set up for a presentation later that afternoon for PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Trim and clean-cut with wavy brown hair, he looks more like the business types that will be in his audience than a Chinese cultural icon.

"It's a little bizarre, isn't it?" said Rowswell. "It's a bizarre career and it's a bizarre situation, but on the other hand it's been 18 years now so you get used to anything."

Rowswell decided to study Chinese when he went to U of T in 1984, having been influenced by all he read about the next century belonging to China and Japan. He eventually travelled to China to study and in 1988 his teachers picked him to appear in a televised New Year's variety show.

He first gained fame for his mastery of xiang sheng, an ancient form of comic Chinese word play that can be likened somewhat to the old Abbott and Costello routine "Who's on first?"

He was paired with a Chinese actor in his 50s who played the role of the wizened scholar lecturing on ancient history to Rowswell's young foreigner. But as the gag went on, the revered tutor botched his telling of the tale and by the end it was Rowswell, this fresh-faced white guy called "Dashan," who showed himself to be the real teacher.

"Dashan gives people the impression he's more Chinese than the Chinese are," said Rowswell.

What makes "Dashan" so successful, says Rowswell, is that his whole image is reassuring to the Chinese. At a time when there is a lot of anxiety about whether they're losing their cultural identity as they become more open, here is this western guy who's showing interest in their language and culture.

"It allows them to feel, `So maybe as we're becoming a little bit more international, the world is becoming a bit more Chinese,'" he said.

There's not much Rowswell hasn't done in his career. He's co-hosted Olympic news shows, appeared in dramas, sold everything from alcohol to fertilizer in commercials, been at the forefront of national anti-smoking and environmental campaigns and also authored children's books.

The notoriety has drawbacks, such as the gou zai dui, the Chinese equivalent of paparazzi, which translates as "pack of dog offspring."

"Dashan" has a squeaky clean image in China, so the tabloids jumped on it when a program designed to teach English called "Dashan's Adventures in Canada" was mentioned during the Gomery Commission inquiry into the sponsorship scandal. It was all eventually cleared up.

Rowswell has a two-year open-ended visa that allows him to go back and forth to China, unique flexibility in a country where visas can take forever to get. He makes about nine trips per year from the Thornhill home he shares with his wife and two children and reckons the longest he's been outside China since 1988 is about 75 days. While there appears to be an unwritten rule against foreigners appearing on live TV in China, it does not apply to "Dashan."

Rowswell describes the Chinese attitude thusly: "Okay, this is the policy for foreigners, but it's Dashan, that's okay, he's one of us."

He is seen by some as too cosy with the Chinese government. His act has been derided as a "monkey show" by critics, upset that he's never spoken out on human rights issues or democracy.

"I understand this perspective, although I don't agree with it, the idea that being non-political itself is immoral," said Rowswell. "When it comes to the Olympics in Beijing and everything, well, the Olympics are going to be held in Beijing, that decision's already been made. So, we're going. It's not a political issue. It's already been decided."

Rowswell's position with the Canadian Olympic team is not a paying one, although it is already paying interesting dividends for some members.

Former Olympic diving champion Sylvie Bernier, the Canadian chef de mission for the 2008 Games, discovered the kind of clout "Dashan" has when she went shopping in Beijing's bustling silk market recently.

Struggling to converse with the sellers, Bernier struck on the idea of pulling out her digital camera and displaying a photograph of herself with "Dashan" whenever negotiating a price. It translated into an instant discount.

She related the story last weekend to a gathering of top Olympic hopefuls in Collingwood at which Rowswell spoke to the athletes about China. Afterwards, many athletes lined up to get their picture taken with "Dashan," too.